(Times paywall) https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/theresa-may-s-only-brexit-option-is-dodging-the-cliff-edge-cjdqxnpxc
"oddly, the very weakness of the government is Theresa May’s one remaining source of strength.
Fearing another election, Tory MPs don’t want to move against her precipitously.
They see her as a Jenga brick that if moved might bring the whole tower crashing down."
"Labour has designed its position to allow it to vote down virtually everything.
Its stance is a classic of opposition policy-making.
Labour insists any deal must deliver leaving the single market while guaranteeing all the benefits of the single market;
it must put jobs first, protect workers’ rights and end free movement.
Without a deal like this they would not be in favour of leaving — but they want to emphasise that they are indeed in favour of leaving."
< Labour really have "cake and eat it" >
"Mrs May should appreciate that there is now a greatly increased chance of the Brexit effort resulting in a chaos she did not intend and does not want.
There are certainly some Tory zealots who don’t get this,
but the Conservative Party cannot be the party that lets businesses and investment leave the country and destroy jobs due to a political crisis.
< that's an existential crisis for the Tories, but their own shortsighted fault >
If it cannot offer prosperity and stability, what can it offer?
So she should accept that the best we can now do is avoid a cliff edge.
< a disaster entirely created by internal Tory party politics >
It’s not just that we should not allow ourselves to be bounced into a long- term arrangement that isn’t quite right by the EU’s timetable.
It’s that there is no majority for any permanent resolution and no time, given how far advanced we are in the Article 50 timetable, to assemble one.
She should therefore announce that we intend to remain members of the European Economic Area — in other words, the single market — while we carry on negotiations after leaving the EU, even if this takes a while.
As Lord Owen has argued, the EEA is a flexible arrangement, which may allow us some control over immigration, and (although this point is contentious) is one we signed up to separately from EU membership.
It is hardly satisfactory.
It leaves all the big questions to be settled.
But it’s only because it doesn’t settle anything that it might get a majority.
And, really, what else can we do?"
< that question is a major indictment of the disaster the Tories alone have created >